Heaven's Gate
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: When Lacus sees a strange boy standing in the snow, her worries about his safety lead her down an unexpected path. She and an unusual ally struggle to save his life, but his secrets are deadly...


Heaven's Gate

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gundam Seed. Or Final Fantasy: Unlimited. ...Very regrettably, I might add, seeing as the bunch of stupid bakas who do own the aforementioned animé decided to kill off my favorite peoples from both. Baka bucketheads. :shakes fist at the meany-mos:

"Who is that?" the girl who had half-paused while stepping into the waiting limousine asked. She was dressed in a long, white faux-fur coat, and she had long pink hair and blue eyes. A gold clip kept her bangs out of her face, which was open and innocent.

"Who, my lady?" the footman in the tuxedo asked her in return. They had just finished a long day of recording, and although the snow had ceased, it looked like it would start up again any moment, and so he was anxious to get his mistress safely home before the weather worsened.

"That boy, over there," the girl said, pointing. The footman looked.

The two of them had just exited a long, low-slung studio near an overhang in prolific northern Ireland. It was late in the year, and the weather had been colder than ever, so the perpetual rains of the country had become driving snow. The girl was pointing out to the edge of the overhang, where a child who looked in his early or mid-teens was standing, staring forlornly into space.

"I don't know, my lady," the footman said quite truthfully. "However, it looks as though he's waiting for someone. Surely, he'll be picked up at any time now. He should be fine. But, if I may say so, Miss Lacus, we should be getting home soon. The boys will be waiting, as well as your supper."

With a sigh, the girl named Lacus swept her skirts into the back seat of the long white limo, still looking back at the strange slim figure standing at the edge of the cliff.

---

"Welcome back," called Athrun from inside the house. Lacus smiled at him, then held out her hands for her electronic Haro pet, the one that he'd given her. The blue-haired, green-eyed young man was her fiancée and her friend, and he, as well as his four squadmates, were back from the military to share the early winter holidays with her.

"Hello, hello! Haro!" said the Haro as it bounced into her outstretched palms.

"Hello, Athrun... and Haro-chan," Lacus replied, giving them each another smile. "How is everyone?"

"Fine," Athrun replied. "We've been waiting for you to get back." The two of them headed down the hall into the vast living room, where a fire was already starting to crackle in the hearth. Since St. White's, when the snow had begun to fall in slight, five-minute showers, the Clyne household had been "warming up" their fireplace, so to speak.

"That took you a little longer than expected, didn't it?" This was spoken by a young man a few years older than Athrun, with dark violet eyes and bright orange, messy hair.

"I apologize for the wait, Rusty," Lacus said as she sat down. "The recording ended up being more trouble than we planned."

"Ahh, that's fine," Rusty said with a shrug, lacing his fingers together behind his head. "Just so long as we get to eat now."

"Yes!" said another boy, this one closer to Athrun's age. He, too, had violet eyes, but he had blonde hair and a darker skin tone. "Food!"

"Shut up," the kid next to him, a boy with silver hair and pale blue eyes, snapped, giving him a smack on the shoulder.

"Cease and desist," Athrun moaned. "C'mon, guys. You should know better than to snipe. We're all hungry, aren't we? Dearka, dinner _is _soon, don't worry. Yzak, lighten up."

Dearka playfully ruffled his companion's hair. "Hey, relax, man. You know what it's gonna be like when the commander gets here... spit and polish all the way."

Athrun just shook his head, and Lacus giggled. "Um, guys... it's not like you have to hide anything from him. It isn't like he'll get angry if you act informally... and this is a holiday after all..."

"I know, but this one insists. He refuses to let his idol know he has a bad side." Yzak's face flamed, and he shot Dearka an extremely evil look.

Looking around, Lacus realized that they were missing someone. "Where did your friend Nicol go? Wasn't he supposed to be here too?"

Rusty laughed out loud. "Yeah, but he discovered the piano. I'll go drag him away." He stood and headed into the study, where the piano Lacus' father owned but never used stood. Nicol, the youngest of their number, was a practiced pianist who truly loved his art. He came back a few minutes later, pulling Nicol himself by the wrist. The boy had curly green hair and warm red-brown eyes, as well as a delicate pink flush across his pale cheeks.

"Sorry," he said softly, ducking his head as he headed back into the room.

"It's alright," Lacus assured him. "Sometime before you have to leave, you do need to play for us all, and how will you be able to do that without practice?"

Nicol smiled, blushing still further.

"Come on, now, everybody, it's time to go eat," Athrun said good-naturedly.

---

"Is something wrong?"

Lacus flinched, blinked, and realized that Athrun had been looking at her for some time now. "Oh! No, sorry, I was just thinking about something I saw earlier today."

Yzak paused in lifting a forkful of steak to his mouth. "Really? What was it?"

Lacus shrugged a little, embarrassed. "Back at the studio, when we were getting ready to leave, I saw someone standing at the overhang. It seemed to be a boy about our age, dressed all in white with white hair. I didn't see his face." She looked down on her mostly full plate. "I admit that I'm a little worried about him. He was just standing there, as if he wasn't planning to go anywhere, even though the weather keeps on getting worse."

"Just standing there?" Rusty repeated. "Stupid kid! In this weather, he'll end up freezing unless his clothes are really warm. And won't he get tired? I bet he's pretty chilly now."

Dearka, chewing on a mouthful of rice, shook his head sagely. "Op worryin. Oosaid--" he swallowed the rice "--You said he's around our age? Then he's got family who'll either talk some sense into him or take him home."

Lacus sighed again and poked her spoon through the mess of her dinner. "I suppose you're right."

After dinner was over, the six of them headed back into the living room, sitting and doing nothing in particular except enjoying each other's company. None of them really moved until they heard the doorbell buzzer.

"I'll get it," Lacus told them, and sprang up, heading through the halls on slippered feet towards the door with Athrun and Haro on her heels.

As she opened the heavy oaken door, a young man gratefully stepped through, dusting a fine layer of snow from his pale-golden, wavy hair and the shoulders of his jacket. Athrun's eyebrows went up as the stranger pushed his hair out of his face, and he stepped forward with a mild cry. "Commander...? We thought you wouldn't be here for a few days yet... what's going on?"

The newcomer was wearing a white mask which hid the upper half of his face, and his countenance was calm and slightly formal even as he shook moisture out of his hair. "You shouldn't worry, Athrun... Miss Clyne. Your father Siegel sent me to tell you that he's going to be delayed by unexpected council meetings for a while yet, and so he won't be home for a few days. I'll be staying here until it's time to leave. Is that alright?"

Lacus bowed slightly. "Of course." Although she tried not to show it, she didn't quite know what to make of her friends' commander, the infamous Rau le Creuset. He was polite, certainly; but even so, he had a lot to hide, and he rarely showed elements of his personality and true feelings even during normal conversation.

Yzak, Dearka, Rusty, and Nicol tumbled through the hallways upon hearing the familiar voice. "Commander?"

"And you just missed dinner, too," Rusty said ruefully.

Rau shook his head with a wry smile. "It's alright. I'm not very hungry, anyway. I should probably head straight upstairs... it was a bit of a mess trying to get through the roads when the weather's in this state."

Lacus nodded. "Shall I show you the way?"

"That won't be necessary. Thank you, though."

"Hello, hello!" Haro interrupted, bouncing around the new visitor. Carefully, Rau caught the little robot, holding it in both hands.

"More of your work, Athrun?" The green-eyed teen blushed a little, and nodded. Smiling again, Rau handed Haro back to Lacus. "I know that your marriage was arranged by your parents, but you should feel lucky to be so close to our young Mr. Zala. He spoils you, you know." And with that, the commander was drifting up the stairs without a word to anyone else.

Lacus, still holding her very happy pet robot, giggled. Strange he might be, but even a man of such legend as Rau had to have a soft spot for Athrun's mechanical creations.

---

And the next day...

"There he is again," Lacus commented to no one in particular as she headed towards her limo with the footman. She was looking at the same overhang as the day before, where the strange boy was once again standing there and staring into space. He didn't seem to have moved from the spot he was at yesterday, either.

"That boy?" the footman asked politely. Lacus nodded. "There, you see? Perhaps he is waiting for someone to pick him up, if he's in the same place as yesterday."

Lacus had her misgivings, but she nodded. "I hope so." It had snowed again, and the boy was standing ankle-deep in the cold white fluff. He didn't show any sign of motion; he just stood looking out over the horizon as if frozen in place. "I really hope so." As she got into the car, she continued to watch after him. To her surprise, a more familiar white-clad figure, this one blonde, walked out to join him, taking off a fur-rimmed hooded coat and handing it to the boy. The strange child looked up with an unrecognizable expression on his face as the man gently placed the coat over his shoulders. But before Lacus could see any more, the limo pulled away.

"What was Rau-san doing all the way out here?" she asked the shaded window in a quiet whisper. Naturally, there was no answer.

---

"He was out there _again?" _Yzak asked incredulously.

Lacus had just explained to her friends about what she had seen. Their reactions varied, mostly along the lines of worry or disbelief.

"Has that kid got a death wish or something?" Yzak demanded. "It's frickin' freezing out there!"

Dearka shrugged, chugged half a bottle of soda, and offered, "Maybe he was just waiting for someone again."

Rusty shook his head. "I don't know, you guys. He might not have anyone to go _to."_

Lacus looked at the Haro in her lap. "I'm not sure about any of this. I still haven't told you the strangest part, though..." She informed them of their commander's unusual appearance as she'd been leaving.

Athrun made a face. "And we can't even ask him now. He's already upstairs, and I think he locks the door to his room every night unless he _wants _somebody in there. It'd be pretty stupid to go bothering him when he's either asleep or working."

"But he likes you, Athrun," Nicol pointed out. "Out of all of us, you could probably get away with it." Yzak scowled and grumbled something derogatory about his blue-haired comrade. "Why not?"

Athrun rolled his eyes. "You're making it sound like the commander plays favorites. Which he doesn't. And I still don't want to bother him. Just... Lacus, see if he shows up again tomorrow, okay? There's just something strange about everything here..."

---

When Lacus walked out of the recording studio for the third time that week, the boy was standing by the overhang yet again. This time, though, he wasn't alone. Rau was there alongside him, and they looked to be in the middle of a mild argument.

In Lacus' eyes, it seemed as if their debate was over the small box in the boy's hands, which looked almost like a bento box. He kept shaking his head as if trying to refuse it, but Rau stayed firm. Ignoring the protests, he walked off towards Lacus' limo, hands stuffed into his pockets.

Lacus gathered up her skirts and trotted up to him. "Excuse me...?" Rau looked up, an expression of slight surprise on his face. "What are you doing all the way out here? Would you like us to give you a ride back?"

The blonde commander bowed slightly. "Thank you, Miss Clyne. I'll take you up on that." The footman waiting at the side of the limo let them both in, and the car was off.

After a pause of a few minutes, Lacus finally spoke. "Forgive me for asking, but who was that boy? I've seen him standing there before, and I've been a little worried... do you two know each other? I mean, did you know each other before this?"

Rau shook his head. "That child and I have no past relations. Like you, I simply saw him alone out there and was... concerned. I never even got his name. However, I _do _know that he's out there holding a vigil for a lost loved one. He was also fasting for some time. I say _was _because I hope what I've given him today has put an end to that nonsense."

Lacus gasped in sympathy. "You mean he's been standing out there all alone for all this time? Even at night? I can't believe he hasn't frozen to death!"

Rau grimaced and turned away. "I've been doing what I can to keep him alive. He's miserable, anyone can see that, but he's still very young, and he shouldn't be left like that." There was another long pause. "Lacus... I won't be able to come here tomorrow, so I'd like you to do something for me."

"Yes?"

"Bring that boy something to eat and drink. Something warm. And try to talk him into ending his vigil soon. The weather's going to get nasty very quickly, and I'm worried that he'll fall ill--or worse--if he's left alone out here. Can you do that?"

Unable to speak, Lacus nodded.

---

Seeing the boy standing out next to the cliff's edge, Lacus took a deep breath and began to walk towards him, her arms laden with the thermoses she'd brought. Mercifully, he didn't take notice of her until they were standing right beside each other.

Stifling a cry of surprise, he stared at her, his eyes wide. This close, Lacus could see that they were pale jadeine in color, wide and liquid and beautiful. His hair was white, and though it was cropped unevenly, it actually looked good on him, fanning out around his face in soft tufts. His frame was slight and his skin pale; he was still wearing the coat that Rau had given him, though it was many sizes too big. His appearance was overall one of innocence and loneliness, with layers of shyness and sorrow betraying his pain.

"You look cold," Lacus said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I've been watching you all this time, and you always seem so alone out here... so I brought you a little something." With grace belying how awkward she felt, she held out the two thermoses she'd brought, along with the pair of packaged chopsticks she'd picked up a while back.

The boy bowed his head in thanks. "I shouldn't, but..." He extended pale and slender hands for the gifts of sustenance. "Thank you..."

The two of them sat on a boulder cleared of snow as the boy pried the first thermos open. Immediately, a warm, rich smell wafted over both of them. At his questioning glance, Lacus shrugged and smiled.

"I was going to bring you tea, but I wasn't sure which kind you'd like, so I opted for coffee instead at a friend's recommendation." (The "friend" had been Rau; the coffee blend had been a gift to her father from Andrew Waltfeld ages ago. He didn't drink coffee often, so this was putting it to use.) "I hope that's alright."

"I like coffee," the boy said absently in his soft voice. It was high alto, and had a warm, melodic tone to it that Lacus could not help but like. There was also some strength and a good deal of innocent openness to it. Raising the thermos to his lips, he took in a deep draft of the liquid's scent before sipping at it.

They passed the next few minutes in silence, with the boy drinking his coffee as though it were an elixir of life and he was going to savor every drop. When he finally set it aside, Lacus gestured that he should open the other thermos. He did. It contained tightly packed, spiced ramen. (A/N: Yes, again with my ramen fetish. I'm sorry. It's my favorite food and I almost never get to eat it since my mom refuses to let me buy it.) As he pried apart the chopsticks and started on the food, Lacus drew her knees up to her chin and considered him. "I'm Lacus," she said after a minute or so of watching him eat. "What's your name?"

The boy bowed slightly to her in reply. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lacus-san. My name... is Kumo." Without looking at her, he went back to the ramen.

"Um..." Lacus looked at her hands. "Excuse me for being so forward, but... why are you out here?"

Kumo was silent. Finally, he managed, "It's... a vigil in respect for my brother" in a husky whisper. He, too, looked at his hands, not eating or moving, just silent in his grief.

There was a long, semi-awkward pause.

"What happened?" Lacus asked softly.

"He..." The voice was barely audible; Lacus had to lean in to catch his words. "He... he died in battle not long ago, and he..."

Lacus realized with a jolt that Kumo was shaking. Looking into his face, she felt something catch at her heart--tears were tracing down his cheeks rapidly, his liquid eyes half-closed, his teeth gritted as he tried to restrain his muted sobs. Aching, Lacus put her arms around him and let him cry.

"He loved this spot," Kumo managed after a length. "In the early morning, all the way through summer and winter, the air condenses, and in the morning there's always a thick layer of mist over the ground. When you stand up here, all you can see is a sea of heavy fog below you, lit by the fires of the sunrise. We used to go dancing together here... that was what we both wanted to do. Be dancers. And continue our swordsmanship... start a dojo maybe..." Scrubbing the back of his hand across his face, Kumo closed his eyes. "We were down here a year ago to visit our friends Hoshi and Arashi when... when, you know. Junius Seven. All our family was on that colony. We lost _everyone._ It really was... as they named it... a bloody valentine."

"For the entire year, I've been doing almost nothing but memorial work," Lacus said softly. "It was so horrible. So many people were lost... even now, I can't believe that the OMNI army could have sunk that low."

"My brother volunteered for ZAFT after that," Kumo continued brokenly. "The only reason I didn't is that I'm still a year too young for the army. And last week... last week, he..."

He couldn't go on.

Lacus, cradling the forlorn child in her arms, felt that she'd never hated the war more.

"You need to end your vigil soon," she said finally. "It's... it's going to get so cold in the next few days. If you stay out here, you're going to freeze to death."

"I would deserve it," Kumo whispered.

A terrible suspicion crept into Lacus' mind, so terrible that she could not even face it directly. Still, it haunted the corners of her consciousness, tainting her view of the boy in her arms.

"I have to go home now," she whispered, giving him one last supportive embrace. "I'll be back again with another lunch tomorrow."

"Promise?"

"Chikatte." (A/N: The word chikatte means something along the lines of "upon my word" or "I swear it".)

Reluctant to leave, Lacus disentangled herself from the desolate Kumo's arms and headed towards the limo that was still waiting for her.

---

She and the boys, as well as their commander, were curled in heavy clothing before the television when the report came on.

The newscaster tucked a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear, then looked at the camera. "Breaking news tonight--in your general area, the scattered snowfalls that have been light until this point have erupted into an unforeseen full-scale blizzard. Lock all your windows and doors, and do not go outside for _any _reason. Repeat, there is a blizzard raging all across Ireland and England. Do _not _go outside for _any _reason."

Even as the report changed to one of more domestic news, Lacus shot out of her seat and dashed for the door, where her long dress-coat was still on its hanger.

"What are you doing!" Athrun yelled. "You heard that, I know you did! Going outside right now would be suicide!"

"Kumo... that boy..." Lacus was already struggling into coat and boots. "He's still out there!" Athrun took a step back, his green eyes huge. "I can't just let him die like this!"

Unexpectedly, Rau was suddenly at her side, sweeping a heavy white trenchcoat around himself. "She's right. I cannot allow anything to happen to that child any more than I can let anything happen to any of you. The ZAFT compound isn't far from here... we'll take the hovercar there, then 'borrow' a Dinn in order to retrieve the boy. We'll be taking him straight to the hospital after that, and I doubt we'll move from there. You'll hear from us via transmission. Don't be stupid enough to come after us."

They were out the door before Athrun or any of the others could protest.

Even though the snow was falling in powerful swirls, Rau had no trouble directing the small craft towards the compound. Thankfully, its heavy doors were not locked to either of their passcards--late as it was, the building hadn't been closed down.

Taking Lacus by the wrist, Rau sprinted down the halls, getting the two of them to the MS hangar within a matter of minutes. A few members of the tech and launch crew were still puttering around, and they turned with comical shock on their faces to see their princess and their most infamous pilot-commander in a mad dash towards the nearest Dinn.

"What's the rush?" one asked stupidly.

"It's an emergency, or we wouldn't be running," Rau snapped back over his shoulder. "We're borrowing this!"

A techie began to chase after them while Rau was giving Lacus a hand up into the cockpit. "You can't do that!"

Rau turned around and nailed him with a hate-laced glare. "I can and I will. If you don't know that, you obviously have no idea who I am." Lacus, already inside the cockpit, shuddered at the poison in the voice which had always been so softspoken, so polite. Rau had teeth and claws, and reflexes obscene even for a Coordinator to boot. The blue-eyed girl decided that she never wanted to get on his bad side.

Turning sharply on his heel, Rau launched himself into the kneeling MS's pilot seat. "Stay behind me and hang on," he warned Lacus, closing the hatch and booting up the OS. "So are you clearing us for launch down there, or are we going to have to blow a hole in your so nicely plated wall? I'll do it too, you see if I won't."

The launch hatch opened and Rau smirked. If Lacus hadn't been so worried, she would've whistled in amazement. He knew his tactics, all right, ranging from what to do in the most dire battle to ways of manipulating the stubbornest official. That was half of what made him so legendary.

One hand on the Dinn's controls and the other on the modifications keyboard, Rau began to move towards the hatch. Lacus, watching him, was amazed at how quickly he was running updates to the operating systems--the screen display couldn't even keep up with it. "Have to rearrange the surface interface to deal with the snow... winds'll be a factor so that means higher flight power and difference in balance... and then..." Even as he said each thing, he was already halfway done doing it. By the time they were out the hatch, Rau was shoving the keyboard aside and utilizing the second joystick control. "Hang in there, kid. We're coming." And without another word, they were in flight.

In actuality the flight time must have been five to ten minutes, but to Lacus it seemed like hours. And even though they were going as fast as they possibly could, she felt so helpless--all she could do was pray.

Finally, the Dinn touched down beside the studio, right past the point where the limo had always been waiting for Lacus after she finished her sessions. Rau turned to her with a grim look on his face.

"It's going to be nearly impossible to see out there with the wind and snow, but you have to keep your eyes open. We can't stay out here for more than a few minutes at max, or even we might be compromised. If you find him, shout. He won't be far from his original spot anyway."

"Right..." They opened the hatch and both of them stepped out.

The entire world was swirling white, but somehow Lacus managed to stick to what Rau had told her--keep her eyes open and don't stop looking. Slowly, she made her way to the spot where Kumo had stood for so many days.

He wasn't there. Numbly, Lacus took a frantic look around, then dropped to her knees, sinking up to her hips in the snow. Had he managed to find someplace to stay after all...?

And then she realized. She saw what was literally right in front of her.

The snow that had settled right before her was higher than the rest, and there was no rise in the ground that she could recall. Feeling sick, she began to dig through the heavy mass, half-certain of what she would find.

One of her hands touched the soft firm flesh of a shoulder still padded by the oversized coat. "Rau-san!" she wailed, feeling tears gather at the corners of her eyes.

Spitting a string of curses that Lacus had never heard before, Rau knelt beside her, the wind tousling his hair into a golden cloud. Between the two of them, they managed to dig Kumo from the heavy layer of snow.

"Is he... is he...?" Lacus managed, nearly sobbing.

"I don't know! With this wind going I can't tell! We have to get him help _right away. _Back to the Dinn. I'll carry him."

Their motions slightly more hurried, they managed to fight their way back to the waiting Dinn, hauling each other back into the safety of the cockpit, which Rau closed with a slam behind them as he handed the unresponsive body to Lacus.

Already booting up the systems, Rau looked over his shoulder at her. "Is he breathing?" he demanded.

Lacus stripped off a glove and held her hand before his face, waiting a few moments. "No."

"Does he have a pulse?"

Fumbling, Lacus undid the top of his coat to feel at the side of his throat, where the blood would pound strongest. "...Yes. He's still alive!"

"Can you do CPR?"

Lacus blinked. "Uh... you mean rescue breathing...? I... I don't know."

"Then can you drive?"

Lacus blinked again. What was he getting at?

"Do you think you can fly this thing while I keep our little friend alive?"

Staring, Lacus pointed at herself with her free hand. "ME? Fly a mobile suit?"

"You're a Coordinator and the daughter of Siegel Clyne. You'll be fine. The joysticks move it and the switches on the grips deal with propulsion and the like. You can figure it out. Here--give him to me..." Standing up, he held out his arms for Kumo. Lacus handed him over, still slightly poleaxed by the order. "The hospital should be pretty obvious. It's just a few kilometers south of here. All the lights will be on in this kind of storm, just in case. ...He's half frozen. We've got to hurry."

Gulping, Lacus sat down and took the controls with shaking hands. It took her only a few moments to figure out which button did what, and why there were two joysticks as well as the pedals you would find in a car. As soon as she'd done that, she turned the Dinn due south and took off.

It was hard to see in the storm, but even so, Lacus was pretty sure of where she was going. The disconcerting thing was the fact that Rau was in the spot just behind her, working diligently at forcing Kumo's heart and lungs to keep going, depending on her to make it.

Before she thought she'd made it, Lacus saw lights below her. "This is it?" she asked aloud.

"Yes," Rau managed, sounding strained. "Take it down and open the hatch. I'll carry him. They should see us and let us in when we come."

After landing, Lacus did as she was told, putting one foot in the little hook and hanging onto the cable that descended easily, letting her step down instead of jumping as she had before. Rau, cradling the still-unconscious Kumo in his arms, landed just instants after her.

"Let's go."

They headed forward, drawing the stares of nurses and the strays who had accumulated in the waiting room as they blasted through the automatic doors.

"Somebody get us help," Rau shouted. "This boy is frozen and dying and he needs medical attention NOW!"

---

Hours later, they were both in the same room as Kumo, his hospital bed, and the many pieces of medical equipment that they'd attached to him in order to keep him alive. Lacus, sitting in one of the room's chairs, had clasped her hands and was praying feverishly. Rau was pacing, and had been for the past half-hour or so.

There was a faint moan from the bed, and both of them stared. Kumo was waking up.

"Are you alright?" Lacus cried, rushing to his side and clasping his hand--the one that didn't have an IV in it.

"Lacus-san...?" The voice was faint and wavering. "And..."

"We're right here," Rau said softly, smoothing his soft white hair with one hand. "You're very, very sick right now, and you need your rest. You must go back to sleep, little one."

"I never did... tell you... what happened," Kumo whispered.

"What do you mean?" Lacus asked, thick dread mixed with adrenaline threading through her bloodstream. "Kumo... you have to rest. Don't strain yourself!"

"That day..." Kumo didn't seem to have heard her. "That day... my brother Kiri, he... he came back and... I... I think the Naturals must have... must have done something to him because... because of the way he was acting... he, he said that... that there was nothing left of the good in the world, that... that all of us had to die, Coordinator and Natural alike... he tried, he tried to... to attack us... us...! All the family he had left... he wanted to kill us..."

Lacus found that tears were streaming down her cheeks even as they were gathering in Kumo's beautiful jadeine eyes. She didn't want to hear what he was going to say, because she already knew the words even as he said them. But she had to listen--she had to do it for his sake.

"I didn't know what to do," Kumo half-sobbed. "He was... was trying to attack the children, and... I just couldn't let him do it... I couldn't let him do it...!"

Rau was still stroking Kumo's hair, kneeling on his other side as he told his story, grave sorrow settled over his countenance.

"I... I... I..." Kumo raised his hands before his tear-blurred eyes as though he expected to see them bloody. "I killed my brother... killed him with my own hands... I love him so much, and I killed him...! I don't deserve to be saved... I deserve to die...! I held him in my arms and told him that I loved him, and he told me, he told me that I was everything to him, and he died, and it's all... my... fault...!"

"It is not your fault," Rau said softly, forcing Kumo to look at him. "Kumo-chan, it is not your fault. If you want to lay blame on anyone, blame the ones who tortured your brother until he broke. What happened to the two of you was horrible. Blame the war. Don't blame yourself. You have to live for him now, you understand? You have to live." Still stroking Kumo's hair and face, Rau repeated the soothing mantra until the child slipped back into unconsciousness. After that, he pulled Lacus back out into the hallway.

"Did anyone ever tell you what happened to Kiri Madoushi?" he asked seriously. Lacus shook her head. "He was a brilliant, brilliant pilot, and I was scouting him for command a while ago. In a heated battle with the Earth Forces, he was taken prisoner and subjected to series of tortures until he finally shattered under the pain. He told their officer, the leader of the Blue Cosmos, everything they wanted to know and then some. Even so, we had to fight to get him back. Shortly afterwards, there was a small atmospheric scuffle, and although Kiri tried to fight, his fear caused him to run. He went down, it was assumed, very near to here. I was the one who got him listed as MIA instead of AWOL. His pain and hatred for everything caused him to wish for the destruction of everything he loved, rather than subject it to the terrors he had been through. To him, the Earth Forces were a constant threat to that which he held dear. They knew all about his home and the people he loved. He told them all while under torture. He seemed to be under the impression that his loved ones would be attacked, and he decided that he would rather kill them all himself than see them go through everything he did.

"His brother, Kumo Makenshi, only fourteen years old, held him off, defeated him in a battle of swords, then gave Kiri the mercy stroke when he asked for a quick death rather than a slow one from his wounds. And that was what broke Kumo. There was no torture more effective, nothing that could have hurt him more than that. But he did what he did out of love, knowing that it was what Kiri wanted, and would be much less painful for him.

"I was telling you the truth when I said that I didn't know Kumo personally. I'd never met him before I saw him standing there on the overhang. But I did know everything about him already. I didn't want to tell you, because... Lacus, although I respect your intelligence, you're still a child, and you have an innocence that must be protected at all costs. I just wanted you to care for him in ways that I couldn't.

"If Kumo pulls through this... I have a favor to ask of you, a great one. If Kumo survives this, I want you to take care of him, to help him heal. The boys and I will be heading out to the front lines again, so there's nothing more I can do for him. Lacus, please... he needs you more than anyone else right now."

Lacus nodded, still crying. "I will, I swear it, I will. I don't want anything bad to happen to him anymore, I want to help him. I promise."

Rau nodded in gratitude. "Thank you. I think we should wait outside for the night--the doctors may want to work on Kumo, and we don't want to be in the way."

"All right." Sitting on the two-seat bench by the door, they settled in to wait out the night.

---

"Excuse me, sir, miss..."

Lacus' eyes snapped open. She'd fallen asleep leaning on Rau's shoulder as they kept their long vigil, and so she sat up, stretching, as he stood. A young doctor was standing in front of them, holding his stethoscope in his hands, giving them an inscrutable look.

"What is it?" Rau asked, his emotions impossible to read from his tone of voice.

The doctor shook his head. "Just an hour ago, the boy you brought in flatlined--his heart stopped. We tried to resuscitate him, but... there was nothing we could do for him." He paused. "I'm sorry." And he walked away.

Lacus shook her head, uncomprehending, tears already streaming down her face. "But... no... no...! I thought... I thought that... I was going to take care of him and... it can't be!"

Rau's reaction was even stronger than hers. Whirling, he slammed the side of his fist into the wall. "DAMN IT!" His entire body was shaking out of tension. _"No,_ dammit!"

They stayed like that for a long time.

Neither of them said it, but they both knew it had to be done. And so they headed back into the room, where Kumo's bare body lay stretched out on the cold pallet, his eyes closed, his face expressionless and smooth.

Lacus walked to his side and held his cold hand, already starting to stiffen in rigor mortis from the temperature, in both of her own. "I'm sorry," she whispered, letting her tears splash and bead on his pale skin. After a minute or so, she wiped her face on the back of her hand and stepped away, allowing Rau to take her place.

He just stood there silently, his hand on Kumo's head, for a long time. "Would you please step outside for a moment?" he asked finally, his voice hoarse. "I... I need to talk to him for a while."

Lacus nodded and walked out, sitting down at the bench beside the door. Even so, she could hear Rau's voice.

"I hate it... I hate this world."

There was the sharp, metallic sound of something striking the tile floor, and Lacus knew without a doubt that Rau had thrown aside his mask.

"Out of all the people of this vast world... I was going to let you see. You, and you alone. You're the only one who could have looked past this... this face to who and what I am beneath it. And yet... this is what happens.

"I would have called you my own child, held you in my arms, healed you, told you everything. You understood. You'd been through the worst pain. You knew. You knew what I've gone through without my having to explain it...

"I hate this world. I hate the Naturals. I hate the ones who did this to you... and the ones who did _this _to _me. _But if only... I would have had someone to protect. Someone to trust."

Lacus suddenly realized that she should go somewhere else. She shouldn't be hearing this... not when Rau was so candidly pouring out his heart, when he believed that no one was around. She stood, blushing, and began to walk down the hall past the doorway.

Hearing her footsteps, Rau automatically looked up.

And she saw.

He flung his arm up to shield his face, but for the briefest instant, she saw, and was frozen.

"Don't look at me," Rau whispered, his voice shaking. "Please. Just... just don't look at me." Lacus still could not move. "Lacus, go... get away from me! I don't want you to see!"

Both of them already knew that she had seen, but Rau needed to act like she hadn't. Filled with leaden shame, she turned slowly around, looking at the toes of her shoes. A few minutes later, Rau brushed roughly past her, his mask back in place, and fled down the hall, leaving her alone with the memory of what he so fanatically hid from others behind her, as well as the lonely, forsaken corpse of innocence.

_fin_

Author's Note: I did some minor tweaking around with the Seed plot in order to slip Kiri and Kumo in, but the storyline is still completely intact. What I've done here, among other things, is given a substantial reason for Rau to be as wary of Lacus as he is in the series. The title of the story is "Heaven's Gate" because I was listening to the theme songs from that storyline of Legend of Mana on the OST while writing it.

As a final note--Rau, Kumo, you two know I love you, and I'm sorry about all that.


End file.
